The Savoy, Düsseldorf, Germany

On April 18th 1958 Exhibitor Willi Goldermann took great pride in opening his state-of-the-art film-theatre in Düsseldorf, the Savoy. It was fully equipped to show all formats of the time, including CinemaScope with 4-track-magnetic and Todd-AO 70mm with full 6-track-magnetic sound. Ironically, it opened with a 35mm-mono-film, Cecil B. DeMille´s “The Ten Commandments”.

Auditorium. Picture source: Manfred Goldermann

The first film in Todd-AO was Otto Preminger´s “Porgy and Bess”! Other events in 70mm were, among others: “Lawrence of Arabia” (with producer Sam Spiegel attending the Premiere), “The Fall of the Roman Empire”, “Khartoum” (with two 70mm prints in our town!), “Uncle Tom´s Cabin” and reruns of films like “Ben-Hur” and “Jesus Christ Superstar”.

Invitation

There were not too much screenings in 70mm at the Savoy, because Düsseldorf had about six theatres during the sixties equipped with Todd-AO, even one with 3-stripe-Cinerama!

A few weeks later a second cinema was opened in the theatre's souterrain, the “Atelier”, conceived as an arthouse-cinema. Special guests during the sixties and seventies were Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, Volker Schlöndorff, Roger Moore and many others.

The Savoy was closed in 1999 and soon reopened as a Live-theatre, the “Atelier” was reopened as a cinema again in 2006.

Many thanks for these wonderful pictures from 1958 to Manfred Goldermann!